Former President Robert Kocharian again defended his actions in the wake of a disputed 2008 presidential election as he personally challenged his pretrial detention in Armenia’s Court of Appeals on Friday.
Kocharian spoke for nearly two hours during a court hearing on his appeal against a lower court’s decision on January 18 to extend his arrest by two months. The district court in Yerevan also refused to free him on bail.
Kocharian was arrested again on December 7 on charges of overthrowing the constitutional order just weeks before serving out his second and final presidential term in April 2008. He is specifically accused of illegally using Armenian army units against opposition supporters who protested against alleged fraud in the February 2008 ballot.
Armenia’s Special Investigative Service (SIS) has also leveled the same charges against three retired army generals, including former Defense Minister Mikael Harutiunian. The SIS says that Harutiunian started illegally deploying troops in before Kocharian declared a state of emergency late on March 1, 2008.
The outgoing president ordered army units into the city center amid vicious clashes between protesters and security forces trying to disperse them. Eight protesters and two policemen were killed in that violence.
According to one of Kocharian’s lawyers, Hayk Alumian, the ex-president told the Court of Appeals that he simply ordered the generals to “ensure the army’s neutrality” in political processes unfolding in the country. Kocharian, he said, argued that opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian tried to get the Armenian military to back the protests and that two deputy defense ministers sided with Ter-Petrosian. They both were sacked in April 2008.
The coup charges are based on a secret directive which Harutiunian issued to the military on February 23, 2008. SIS investigators say that the directive known as the Order No. 0038 led to the army’s illegal involvement in the post-election developments.
In Alumian’s words, Kocharian defended the legality of that order in his court testimony. “I believe that order does not contain any provision for which Mr. Harutiunian can be accused or rebuked,” the lawyer told journalists.
The Court of Appeals scheduled its next hearing for Monday.
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